captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions >> lehrer: the securities and exchange commission charged former fannie mae and freddie mac executives with misleading investors and the public about risky loans. good evening. i'm jim lehrer. >> woodruff: and i'm judy woodruff. on the newshour tonight, we assess the complaints-- the first of their kind-- and how the alleged wrongdoings may have contributed to the mortgage meltdown and the financial crisis. >> lehrer: then, we update the compromises and the sticking points on tax and spending bills as congress tries to adjourn for the holidays. >> woodruff: ray suarez examines the investigation of private bradley manning, accused of

giving thousands of classified documents to wikileaks. >> lehrer: hari sreenivasan reports on last night's republican presidential debate in iowa. >> woodruff: mark shields and david brooks analyze the week's news. >> lehrer: and jeffrey brown talks with poet rita dove as she sorts through 100 years of american verse. >> to make an anthology that tells you true what the century was like, but also invites you in, is really important. >> lehrer: that's all ahead on tonight's newshour. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> computing surrounds us. sometimes it's obvious and sometimes it's very surprising where you find it. soon, computing intelligence in unexpected places will change our lives in truly profound ways. technology can provide customized experiences, tailored to individual consumer

preferences, igniting a world of possibilities from the inside out. sponsoring tomorrow starts today. >> and by bnsf railway. >> the william and flora hewlett foundation, working to solve social and environmental problems at home and around the world. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> woodruff: the people who were >> woodruff: the people who were running two mortgage giants when the housing bubble burst were formally accused today of civil fraud. the securities and exchange commission filed a lawsuit naming six former executives at fannie mae and freddie mac.

the six were accused of lying about how deeply fannie and freddie had invested in securities backed by risky home mortgages. >> in two separate complaints, we allege that these individuals caused their companies to materially misstate their sub- prime mortgage exposure in filings with the s.e.c., through public statements, through investor calls, and media interviews. >> woodruff: the head of the s.e.c.'s enforcement division, robert khuzami, spoke in washington, and said the charges go right to the top. >> our suits reach into the corporate boardrooms and name the former c.e.o. of fannie mae, daniel mudd, and the former chairman and c.e.o. of freddie mac, richard syron. >> woodruff: together, mudd and syron-- seen here at a congressional hearing in 2008-- are the highest-profile individuals to be accused in the financial crisis.

the other four executives named fannie and freddie own or guarantee about half of all u.s. home mortgages. but the housing meltdown brought them to the brink of collapse, and the government seized control of both in september of 2008. since then, the federal government has lent the firms more than $150 billion, the largest bailout of the financial crisis. mudd was fired from fannie after the federal takeover, and today, he insisted the lawsuit should never have been brought. he said: "every piece of material data about loans held by fannie mae was known to the united states government and to the investing public. the s.e.c. is wrong." fannie and freddie entered agreements with the government today accepting responsibility for their conduct without admitting or denying the allegations. federal criminal investigations

are also underway into the two firms. we take a closer look now at today's charges with edward pinto. he's a resident fellow at the american enterprise institute, and served as executive vice president and chief credit officer for fannie mae in the 1980s. and lynn turner was chief accountant for the securities and exchange commission from 1998 to 2001. he's now a managing director at the consulting firm litinomics. is we thank you both for being with us. . i, to you first. remind us before we talk about these charges, what exactly was fannie mae and freddie mac's role during the time of this complaint late 2006 to the middle of 2008 in the housing market? >> fannie and freddie were the biggest players in the secondary market. they controlled a substantial portion. another substantial portion was controlled by private mortgage-backed security issuers. but they had a very large

participation in the marketplace and were buying large quantities. >> woodruff: secondary market meaning? >> primary markets the origination. secondary markets is what happens after the loan is originated. >> woodruff: lynn turner, how significant are these fraud charges? >> i think these are very significant. i think they're very positive development for investors in that it shows in this case, the government is willing to go after and hold accountable people at the very top when they don't fully disclose very important information to those who are buying stocks, making investment in this type of company. >> woodruff: but, it has taken several years to bring these charges. what does that say to you? >> you know, having been involved with the s.e.c. investigation and the legal process, it is not unusual that it would take this long to start an investigation, issue subpoenas, get documentes, go through them, go back and forth

in the court with the defense attorneys. so i don't think this is a particularly long period of ti time. it's just that the wheels of justice grind slowly at this time, and i do think want s.e.c. is within a reasonable time period brought this case. >> woodruff: edward pint i, i read much of the language in both of the complaints particularly what daniel mudd and sryon did. help us understand what they are being charged with. what specifically can they do that was illegal? >> to simplify it, they made statements that we are not investors in subprime mortgages and we define subprime mortgages -- some they talk about them as mortgage with impaired credit but in other places the only things we count as subprime mortgages is those where someone else called them subprime. and, yet, internally, they were

tracking things another way. and so in the case of freddie mac, according to the s.e.c. complaint, they say freddie mac was counting things as subprime-like or near subprime. so they're saying on the one hand, they're telling investors one thing, but internally they were keeping track of other things. and this really relates to the jekyll and hyde nature that people have talked about with fannie and freddie. they had one persona that they presented to investors which said we're low risk. we're not doing this, we're not doing that. on the other hand, they would go to the government and say we're doing affordable housing and higher risk loans and we are getting credit for that and that put them in a difficult position. >> woodruff: lynn turner, the statement from daniel mudd, he said the s.e.c. is wrong. he said the government knew everything we were doing. he said the public, the investing public knew everything we were doing. what do you make of that? >> well, i think that's pretty well describing what his defense case is going to be.

he's going to argue that the regulator, in this case the federal housing finance authority--s had the chance to look at everything, which is true, knew about everything -- that we'll find out. but i suspect that at the end of the day, he'll have a difficult time showing that the investors he sold stock to really were told about all the type of information on these loans that made them so risky. i think that's going to be the crux of the case, and i suspect at the end of the day, the s.e.c. will have ad any case. >> woodruff: how do you see that, edward pinto, having looked at the complaint? >> i've looked at the complaint and i can tell you a couple of things. i know on good authority the s.e.c. has been looking at this for three years so it took them time to develop this. it's a very detailed complaint, going into a lot of information. they seem to understand things. i was very impressed with that understanding, and how they laid things out. secondly, i've talked to people, including one individual very

sophisticated chief investment officer who went through the fannie-fret fredee documents back three, four years ago and concluded they didn't have much exposure, based on what they were telling them. and then when you actually parse through things and add everything up that was in various spots, things they disclosed, didn't disclose, you get a very different picture. so i think what is impressive about this particular set of complaints is that they really go into the details and show that internally they were describing one thing and externally they were describing something else. they had a program called the expanded approval program, where they would basically create expanded guidelines and take much more risky loans. they clearly knew what these were, how risky they were, and they were very specific not including them in the subprime, even though they had characteristics as the complaint describes it, more risky than what they were calling subprime. >> woodruff: of now lynn turner, we know there have been

private sector financial institutions involved in the housing, in the mortgage markets, including ones that went under-- bear stearns, lehman brothers-- to varying degrees, many other institutions that were helped by the government. what is your sense of why the s.e.c. chose to go after fannie and freddie first or rather than the other private sector institutions? >> i suspect part of what may be behind this is in fact the government controls fannie and freddie now. their regulator runs and operates them. so when the s.e.c. reachans agreement with the company, it's like the government negotiating with itself on these particular cases. and it might have made it easier to do some of these filings from that perspective. on the other hand, it does raise the question of when you had similar situations at the private sector, large

institutions, the dib banks that required the bailouts and all, just as fannie and freddie did, why hasn't the s.e.c. brought the same type of cases at those. for example, we know that those executives were telling investors things were okay at the same time that we now know the fed was lending massive amounts of money for them. so it seems like you've got a dichotomy between how the s.e.c. is treating someone that's totally controlled by government now and those that are out in the private sector. >> woodruff: edward pinto, how do you see that? >> i think what they've concluded, fannie and felledee-- you asked how big they were? in 2008 they had $4.5 trillion in mortgages. baseold the s.e.c. analysis which corroborates the analysis i did, about a third of fannie-freddie's exposure were these risky loans. you couldn't tell that from

their disclosures, and that had an impact on the entire marshall. you're talking about $1.5 trillion of risky loans and they were telling people we don't have that many risky loans. >> woodruff: gentlemen, we are going to live of leave it there. >> lehrer: still to come on the newshour: another day of partisan struggle in the congress; a hearing for the suspected wikileaks source; the republican presidential debate; shields and brooks; and sorting through a century of poetry. but first, the other news of the day. here's hari sreenivasan. >> sreenivasan: a pennsylvania judge today ordered trials for two penn state officials accused of lying to a grand jury. it stems from a probe of sexual abuse charges against jerry sandusky, a former assistant football coach. the judge's ruling involved penn state athletic director tim curley, who's now on leave, and gary schultz, a former university vice president. earlier in the day, assistant football coach mike mcqueary

testified that he "has no doubt" he saw sandusky molest a boy in a locker room shower in 2002. as many as 20,000 children have been sexually abused in roman catholic institutions in the netherlands since 1945. an independent commission announced that finding today, after investigating incidents at schools, orphanages and seminaries. the report said some 800 priests, pastors, and lay people were implicated, but only about 100 are still alive. after the release, the archbishop of utrecht issued an apology. >> i feel ashamed, and i feel deeply touched and affected by what rirea i have read in the r. >> sreenivasan: the archbishop said victims will be compensated by a commission established by the church last month. individual payments could go as high as $130,000. baseball's home run king, barry bonds, escaped a prison term today on his conviction for

obstructing justice. a federal judge in san francisco gave him 30 days house arrest and two years probation, plus community service time. the judge then delayed the sentence pending appeal. bonds was found guilty of misleading a federal grand jury during a probe of steroid use in professional sports. on wall street today, stocks finished out a tough week as worries over european debt continued. the dow jones industrial average lost two points to close at 11,866. the nasdaq rose 14 points to close at 2,555. for the week, the dow lost more than 2.5%; the nasdaq fell 4%. b.p. will receive $250 million from the maker of a blowout preventer that failed during the gulf oil spill last year. under a legal settlement announced today, both companies will drop all claims against one another. next february, a federal trial will determine who was at fault in the spill. japan has moved a step closer to lifting evacuation orders around

a nuclear plant ravaged by a tsunami. the government announced the fukushima daichi plant has reached a stable state known as "cold shutdown". three reactors there went into meltdowns after the disaster last march. it became the world's worst nuclear crisis since chernobyl in 1986. in tokyo, prime minister yoshihiko noda said one major concern has been resolved, but there's still a long way to go. >> ( translated ): although phase two is complete, our battle with the nuclear accident has not ended. for now, we need to move on from stabilizing the nuclear reactors to decommissioning the nuclear reactors. >> sreenivasan: a 12-mile zone around the plant will likely be off limits for years to come. but today's announcement could lead to letting some of the 100,000 evacuees return to less- contaminated areas. tensions flared in egypt today as soldiers stormed a protest camp in cairo. at least three protesters were shot to death, with more than 200 injured.

the troops battled crowds outside the cabinet building, where demonstrators had camped for three weeks, demanding an end to military rule. and tv footage showed security officers throwing rocks at protesters from atop the building. thousands of people in china gathered for a memorial service today in a small fishing village that's seen months of unrest. they mourned a local butcher who fought against farmland being seized for development without the owners' consent. he died sunday after being detained for rioting, but family members said his body showed signs of abuse. local authorities reported the man died of heart failure. outspoken writer christopher hitchens died last night of pneumonia after a long struggle with esophageal cancer. the british-born hitchens was known for biting commentary on politics and religion, including his 2007 book "god is not great," a manifesto for atheists. christopher hitchens was 62 years old. those are some of the day's major stories. now, back to jim.

>> lehrer: the house passed a federal spending bill to keep the government running for the rest of the year. anything continued over a payroll tax cut extension. >> on this vote, the yeas were 296, the nays 2 2-1, the conference report is adopted. >> lehrer: with that, the house sent the senate a trillion- dollar bill to fund much of the government through next september and prevent a federal shutdown this weekend. republican hal rogers of kentucky chairs the house appropriations committee. >> mr. speaker, after weeks of arduous negotiations on this package with our senate counterparts, we've struck a fair bipartisan compromise. no party got everything they wanted, but we have found a reasonable, responsible balance between reduced spending, wise federal investments, and policy changes that american businesses need to thrive.

>> lehrer: the agreement on spending shifted the discussion to extending the payroll tax cut for 160 million americans, along with extending long-term jobless benefits. both are due to expire on december 31. but republicans continued to demand that any extension bill also call for starting construction on the keystone oil pipeline to run from canada to texas. they said it would create thousands of jobs. president obama wants to delay the project for further environmental studies, but today, house speaker john boehner was adamant against waiting. >> if that bill comes over to us, we will make changes to it, and i can guarantee you that the keystone pipeline will be in there when it goes back to the united states senate. >> lehrer: democrats condemned republicans for insisting on the pipeline despite the president's opposition. house minority whip steny hoyer. >> they have added an item that the president said he's going to veto, contrary to their pledge

to america, and their pledge to america said they would not add extraneous matter to must-pass bills. >> lehrer: later, a white house spokesman declined to repeat that veto threat. in case an agreement cannot be reached, there was talk of a possible plan "b"-- a two-month extension of the payroll tax cut that would come with a $40 billion price tag. >> woodruff: the next chapter in the wikileaks saga. ray suarez has our report. >> suarez: the normally tight security at fort meade, maryland, outside washington, was tighter still today. it was the first court appearance for army private bradley manning, accused as the prime source for the wikileaks document dumps. the army intelligence analyst, who turns 24 tomorrow, faced an

article 32 hearing, a military grand jury proceeding. prosecutors hoped to show there's enough evidence to court martial manning on 22 charges, including espionage and aiding the enemy. it all stems from the largest disclosure of classified information in u.s. history. >> the first casualty of war is the truth. >> suarez: in three installments, the web site founded by anti-secrecy advocate julian assange posted a fraction of the many thousands of classified documents it was given about the iraq and afghanistan wars, and a trove of state department cables. >> this is bushmaster 7. roger. engage. >> suarez: among the most incendiary releases-- video from a u.s. attack helicopter over baghdad in 2007. >> oh, yeah, look at that, right through the windshield. ( laughs ) >> suarez: the gun crew killed 11 men they deemed a threat. it turned out one of the dead was a cameraman for the reuters news service. then, there were the state department cables showing u.s.

efforts to curb iran's influence, and offering blunt appraisals of corrupt middle- east regimes. top u.s. officials gave no details, but insisted the leaks caused severe damage to national security. secretary of state hillary clinton was out front then, and again yesterday. >> it was a very unfortunate and damaging actions... action that were taken that put at risk individuals and relationships to an extent that we took it very seriously and launched a vigorous diplomatic effort to try to counter. >> suarez: since his arrest 19 months ago, manning has been jailed with unusually restrictive conditions at both the marine base at quantico, virginia, and, lately, at fort leavenworth, kansas. supporters charge his treatment-

- solitary confinement and routine denial of clothing-- has been tantamount to torture. a small group gathered outside fort meade today. if convicted, manning could face life in prison. for more on today's proceedings, we are joined from fort meade by arun rath. he's been covering the wikileaks and bradley manning story for our pbs partners, "frontline." arun, welcome. give us an idea of how closed or open this proceduring was. were you allowed in the courtroom? >> reporter: no, there was only a pool of about nine reporters allowed inside the courtroom. the proceeding itself is an opening proceeding. it's open to the public. found come you could try to get one of spots inside and some people did. i think there was a supporter of bradley manning who as the session was ending today shouted out, "bradley manning, you're a hero."

there are clear security restrictions in place so for the media that aren't in the pool, the rest of us were in a media center, some distance off from the courtroom watching it on a closed circuit television feed. >> suarez: as the equivalent of a civilian grand jury proceeding, what did the government and bradley manning's defense have to do today? >> well, today was actually-- you would have thought it was going to be a fairly straightforward procedural sort of day where they would read him his charges, go through the basic things they would ordinarily any through. it didn't get that far into the process. they read the charges to him. bradley manning said he understood the charges and when it came to asking the lawyers whether or not they felt that the investigating officer who acts as the judge in this case could perform the duties impartially, the defense counsel for bradley manning said no. at that point, david combs, who is bradley manning's civilian confidence counsel, launched into a whole point-by-point argument as to why this

presiding officer, investigating officer was not impartial and why he should recuse himself from the trial. >> suarez: was this a gesture or more like an actual pleading? was bradley manning's civilian lawyer trying to get the investigative officer the equivalent of the judge, removed from this proceeding? >> reporter: he was. he was telling-- he was asking him to recuse himself. the odd thing about this is only the investigating officer can make the decision to recuse himself. basically, he was appealing to the investigating officer, basically to the judge, trying to explain to him, "you are not impartial for these reasons," and he went through all of them, one being this officer works for the department of justice in a civilian job, and the department of justice hans ongoing investigation into bradley manning. and he brought up what he thought was a clear conflict. the investigating officer said he works in a division completely separate from that, the child exploitation services

section. but, still, that was not enough. there was an awful lot of beating up on the judge, basically, over the course of this hearing. >> suarez: for more than a year, news reports have carried stories of rough treatment of the accused. how did bradley manning look in court today? >> well, it's interesting, actually, i can not recognize him at first when i saw him. part of that might have been that it was sort of grainy video from the closed circuit recording, but he was-- his hair is a little bit longer, a little bit daycare. maybe he was dying it before he was incarcerated. and he looked relatively healthy. he looked a little more heavyset that he was, not the small, waivish kid we've seen in these pictures. >> suarez: arun, is this going to be a complicated case? we're talking about thousands of documents that were released by someone, but that were secreted or rated in some cases even top secret but now have been public knowledge for a long time.

is there going to be some difficulty, some complications with handling them in court? >> reporter: it certainly seems that way. i mean, we didn't get more than five minutes into the proceedings today before it got complicated and completely derailed on the issue of the impartiality of the judge. again, bradley manning's counsel brought you want fact the tracing the harm done by these documentdocuments and what can y be traced to that. it's going to be extremely complicated. no doubt about that. >> suarez: these documentes were readable by basically anyone with a computer. is it part of the government's burden to demonstrate that they were actually received by people who meant to do harm to the united states? >> reporter: well, the charge sheet does list-- you can-- if the information kwetz to the enemy, even directly, that is still an offense. i think that it's a little bit up in the air still, toon extent, how much they're going to have to be able to prove that. it's very complicated to draw these lines from one thing to another and say there was harm

done. and there's been a lot of reporting over the past year, and there's been talk about people who have had their lives put in danger but in terms of an actual case, it's difficult to draw those connections. >> suarez: what punishment does the young intelligence officer face if convicted on the more serious count? >> reporter: it is a capital crime. he could be sentenced to death for this. the prosecution in this case-- this might be a little bit unusual-- has already say they will not seek the death penalty. but they could at any point-- and they could always change their minds on that and it was brought up by his counsel he is facing-- this is a capital offense. he could be executed for this. it seems extremely unlikely that will happen given the prosecution has already say they will not pursue that. >> suarez: do we know if any of the other big personalities associated with this case might end upper being called as witnesses, for instance, julian assange, the head of wikileaks? >> reporter: it seems pretty unlikely. one of the defense's biggest

complaints today was about their witness list largely being not looked over properly by the judge, that-- they said 38 witnesses that they had requested that were not the same witnesses as the prosecution, only two were allowed. and that's still being contested. they have asked for testimony from president obama and hillary clinton. so it's a pretty ambitious list, and i can imagine they would try for assange, but i can imagine that not working out. it was interesting, actually, in the proceedings today, bradley manning's attorney, again, cited this department of justice investigation as a concern-- he actually speculated that there might be some sort of-- plea agreement where the department of justice would try to get a plea agreement from bradley manning to get him to testify to get julian assange, in the words of his lawyer. >> suarez: arun wrath from pbs "frontline" thanks for joins us. >> reporter: thank you very much ray.

>> lehrer: there is a link to more of "frontline's" coverage of the wikileaks story on our web site. >> woodruff: now, to campaign politics. former massachusetts governor mitt romney scored a governor's endorsement today on the heels of last night's republican presidential debate in sioux city, iowa. hari sreenivasan has the latest on the race for the g.o.p. nomination. >> sreenivasan: mitt romney may not be leading in the polls, but he's far ahead of the republican pack when it comes to endorsements. and this afternoon in greenville, south carolina, he picked up another one-- nikki haley, the state's first-term governor. >> i didn't want anyone that had any ties to washington. it's chaotic enough, and what do we know, the biggest chaos we know right now in this country is washington, d.c., and we don't want any more of it. >> sreenivasan: the haley nod came a day after romney and the six other republican contenders met in iowa for their 13th debate of the year, and the last

one before next month's caucuses. the event, broadcast on the fox news channel, included a number of sharp exchanges-- between candidates looking to break into the top tier and the leading front-runners, romney and former house speaker newt gingrich. minnesota representative michele bachmann was asked if she could prove her accusation that gingrich's work with mortgage giant freddie mac amounted to influence peddling. >> it's the fact that we know that he cashed paychecks from freddie mac. that's the best evidence that you can have. >> that's just not true. what she just said is factually not true. i never lobbied under any circumstance. >> you don't need to be within the technical definition of being a lobbyist to still be influence-peddling with senior republicans in washington, d.c., to get them to do your bidding. and the bidding was to keep this grandiose scam of freddie mac going.

>> sreenivasan: gingrich's past work for the government sponsored enterprise, and the $1.6 million he received as payment, also came under fire from texas congressman ron paul. >> it's literally coming from the taxpayer. they went broke. we had to bail them out. so, indirectly, that was money that he ended up getting. they're still getting money from us. >> sreenivasan: gingrich was also asked by the moderators to respond to recent attacks leveled by romney that he is an "unreliable conservative." >> it's sort of laughable to suggest that somebody who campaigned with ronald reagan and with jack kemp and has had a 30-year record of conservatism is somehow not a conservative. >> sreenivasan: but former pennsylvania senator rick santorum said gingrich's record warranted additional scrutiny. >> the speaker had a conservative revolution against him when he was the speaker of the house. i had conservatives knocking down my door, because i was the effective advocate for the principles that they believed in. >> sreenivasan: fox news moderator chris wallace pressed romney to explain his shifting views on abortion, gay marriage,

and gun rights. romney asserted that he had been consistent on two of the three, admitting to only a change on abortion. >> i have learned over time, like ronald reagan and george herbert walker bush and others. my experience in life over 17, 18, 19 years has told me that sometimes i was wrong. where i was wrong, i've tried to correct myself. >> sreenivasan: texas governor rick perry, meanwhile, made an unusual appeal to religious voters, likening himself to denver broncos quarterback tim tebow, whose born-again christian faith has been well publicized. >> i hope i am the tim tebow of the iowa caucuses. >> sreenivasan: with recent polls in iowa showing the race there narrowing, the contest could still be anyone's game. >> lehrer: and to the analysis of shields and brooks-- syndicated columnist mark shields, "new york times" columnist david brooks. ings mark, last night, gingrich

was clear the major tearing of just about everybody. how did he go through it? >> well, jim, there's a great question. if it's a two-candidate race, it's shields against brooks, shields attacks brooks, and either brooks benefits from the attack or he's hurt by the attack. but when you get lehrer in and get seven people, and the attack is made, then you don't know who the beneficiary is. in other words, romney did not go after gingrich last night. >> mary: he stayed away. >> michele bachmann i thought did it adroitly and ron paul. how did he do it? he showed ecfilmity. he showed, i thought, a couple of flashes of what we've come to expect as newt gingrich's characteristic arrogance but he did not lose his temper. i think she stung and hurt with her business on freddie mac and the timing couldn't have been worse given today's story of the

indictment of the leadership of freddie mac and fannie mae. >> if you want to judge the whole momentum of the race, you have to say romney is beginning to reassert himself. i thought he had quite a good debate performance, especially after inferior performances the last couple of times. gingrich was not knocked out by any means but he was bruised around a little. the other big thing that happened was ron paul. ron paul was very aggressive on not being aassertive about iran and that's simply not an acceptable policy in republican circles. >> republicans want the u.s. to be-- >> there's a libertarian wing, but it's not that big. the big movement was paul moving down, gingrich getting hits a little, and romney reasserting himself. the other thing happening simultaneously is there is an air and ground game in the primary states which we don't see as much if you're not noiowa. the fact is romney and paul and others, they have organization and structure. and they're beginning to take control of the debate.

with ads and other things. and i think that's one of the reasons you're beginning to see gingrich's poll numbers flat or even declining a little. >> i disagree with david on ron paul. first of all, iowa isn't a democrat-versus republican. iowa historically is an anti-interventionist state, always has been. the real hot bed of opposition to america's war, world war ii was centered in the midwest in places like iowa. yes, the democrats are more dovish, but i don't think the republicans in iowa, while they are socially conservative, are that gripped with war fever. my one criticism of the moderators last night was their whole foreign policy and national security questions were about iran. they never once asked a question about iraq, or afghanistan. it was centered totally on iran. and the republicans just-- they can't stop themselves they just

start rattling sabers. they don't want to pay for it. they don't want to be involved in it, but, boy, they love war. >> they love war, david? >> do think it's true. i've said this before on the program, and i think there are experts who agree with this, that within a year, iran will be a major story as they get close to some sort of-- not a deliverable nuclear warhead but a step in their nuclear program. i think it was appropriate to ask about iran. that is the looming crisis, at least in the middle east. the ron paul thing is interesting because just speaking in political terms, mitt romney needs ron paul to do well. he takes votes away from gingrich. >> how does paul take votes away from them? >> basically, there's a moderate group which tend to go towards romney, and then there's more are youable, more conservative group that is split among all these other conservatives-- >> pirry >> and romney. and if paul takes a chunk out of

gingrich, that brings gingrich down. if paul disappeares, gingrich probably goes up. >> david mentioned there has been some kind of fragmentary polls today saying maybe the surge-- the gingrich surge is over. do do you sense anything like that? >> what i sensed is first of all, how publicly republicans have gone in denouncing him, in scorching terms, whether joe scarborough was a class of '94 republican in the house now on msnbc, and peter king, congressman from new york-- >> yet national review" magazine. >> "national review" did it editorially. these are people who are in office or in public life, and they're just standing up there saying, "don't do it." many who voted with him and supported him when he came in, jim talent of missouri. so i think is that there's a sense of the electability

question of newt gingrich has really been opened and-- >> no way he could beat obama? >> right now we have the "wall street journal"/nbc poll" he is even or behind a generic republican. he's two points ahead of mitt romney. gingrich is barely three points ahead of the president. that's got-- >> there was a poll out of the 12 swing states that has romney beating the president handily in those sweep stakes, gingrich just barely marching by. among republicanes, though, they think gingrich is as electable or more electable. >> on what basis? >> they're in an ideological cocoon. the fact sa reason a lot of people have worked with him, like molinari and talent and stuff are, so angry is not because it's elicatibility, i don't think. i think it's because they worked

for the guy. and i said before, all the people who worked with romney like him and want him to be president. all the people who worked with gingrich want romney to be president. it's sort of a rhetorical overlode which gets you the back press, and you back it up with weak policies, the worst of both worlds. >> speak of working together-- this is called a segue in television-- the congress of the united states is not still up to it, is it? they're on another one of these brinksmanship addiction trips-- >> they're going to resolve it. >> are they? >> i've spoken to people and they're pretty confident they will resolve it one way or another. what's been interesting to me is the structure. the democrats will want to give the republicans tax cuts for the american people, and the republicans are saying no, no. we want more. it's a bit like a parent going to a kid and saying, "we're going to take you to disney world." and the kid says, "we'll agree to go to disney world if you give us an x-box and iphone."

"the parents say you'll love disney world. and then they say we'll give you the x-box and disney world. this is yet republicans always win. they're getting concessions. >> you sigh it that way? >> i don't see it the same way. i think that, first of all, the-- we're stuck in this morass until voters decide that one party is going to be accountable. i mean, as long as you have the rule in the senate that 40 senators can stop anything, prevent anything from happening, whether they're democrats, or republicans or a combination thereof-- you're going to have this deadlock. and what we have now is-- in 2011, for the first time, we have appropriations that will take us all the way through the next fiscal year. that's the end of september so there won't be any recurrence of what we've been through in 2011 in 2012 of the stop and the threat and everything else. >> we're gog close the

government down-- >> no debt ceiling. in that sense, there's no chance for the republicans to kind of hold hostage and their nonnegotiable demands again. there's no way in the world they're going to double the approval rating of congress. make no mistake about that. but i do think what we have, quite bluntly, is a case that the democrats have finessethe tax keel with the republicans-- the republicans don't want to be on record-- the majority of both parties don't want to be on record opposing tax cuts for 160 million people. i think that's it. and what we may see say showdown to the extension of the bush tax cuts eventually. >> and the pipeline thing. >> the republicans see that as an excellent issue because it's an issue that splits the democratic party. the unions tend toment the pileline environmentalists tend to not want it.

i'm still struck by the overall-- the overall atmosphere. republicans are willing to risk something extremely unpopular, like shutting down the government or not getting this payroll tax thing, in order to get tawhatthey want. and i don't know whether it's conviction, ideology, or really tough politics but again and again they've been willing to risk things that are really unpopular. >> we have a couple of minutes left and i don't want to make the same mistake that you said the moderator made and not talk about the iraq war. came to a conclusion. what are your thoughts about it? was it worth it for americans ins or the iraqis? >> it was not worth it. this was a warp generals opposed like brent scowcroft, and norman schwarzkopf. it was a war favored by civilians had never experiencede or paul wolfowitz, don rumsfeld

or george bush or dick cheney. and the reality was we went to war under false pretenses. we went to a war not paid for. pee went into a war on a go-it-alone policy, and 4500 american homes will not have a son, daughter, husband, or wife this christmas or any christmas in the future, who can't see their children grow up, as a consequence of it. and 33,000 are wounded, many in a disabling way. i think it's left us weakened. i think it's left us with less influence. i don't think iraq-- >> "we," the united states of america? >> the united states of america, and strategically the greatest advantage has gone to iran whichs now now has an influence disproportionate to what it what before this war began. >> david, how would you see it? >> i don't know if it was worth it. the cost was high in terms of lives, treasure, and national moral. we're left with this thing. we basicry had centuries of stability and stagnation in the

middle east. which produced terrorism, but also produced the crushing of human capital for century after century. 9/11 happens, the taliban is thrown out, saddam is deposed, people are voting with purple fingers and now we have a moment of turmoil. we don't know the turmoil-- it would be worse or it could be better. i think the iraq war was part of the things that in-- in 100 years, and 50 years we'll look back and see where the turmoil went and have a better sense of how the iraqi electiones, getting rid of saddam, getting railed of the taliban, helped lead maybe getting rid of mubarak and qaddafi and all the rest. >> your sense is that it's possible that it could turn out positive? >> it's possible it could turn out badly. i say that with no confidence. i will say we've moved from a period of stagnation to turmoil. whether it's good or bad turmoil, history will judge. >> it's a terrible, terrible

policy to go to war, the most serious decision a country can make, with absolutely no justification. i mean, let's be very blunt about it-- al qaeda was responsible for 9/11. iraq had nothing to do with it. iraq had no weapons of mass destruction and no ability or capacity to deliver those weapons that were nonexistent. >> you don't dispute that, david. >> no, we obviously thought what we thought back then. but i thought the need to disrupt the middle east was one of the reasons. >> unstated. >> unstated and good-bye. >> woodruff: finally tonight, stepping in time through a century of american poetry. jeffrey brown has our story. >> brown: no, you're not suddenly watching "dancing with the stars," but it's not every day we get to start a poetry story with ballroom dancing. and in this case, the shoe fits. it belongs to rita dove, one of the nation's best-known poets, author of nine volumes of verse, and-- with her husband and

fellow writer, fred viebahn-- an accomplished dancer in the studio they built adjacent to their home in charlottesville, virginia. as it turns out, dancing has been one way to let off steam over the past four years as dove took on a major challenge-- sorting through 100 years of poems to create the new "penguin anthology of 20th century american poetry." how to capture such a broad and varied portrait of the country's literary life? dove says she let the poets themselves be her guide. >> i began with the ones you expect, the robert frosts and elizabeth bishop and people like that. and then, i listened to who they were reading, who they were talking to, and began to, you know, fan out that way, which made a big mess, of course. but it was a lively mess, so it was okay.

>> brown: well, was it poets or poems that you were more focused on? >> in the beginning, i went with the poets. but then, it became the poems, great poems which somehow encapsulated some energy that made an impact and moved the century forward. >> brown: in fact, in the introduction, you write about changes in america through this time, right? there's all kinds of things happening in the century that poetry responded to. >> right. and i think one of the things that people tend to forget is that poets do write out of life. it isn't some set piece that then gets put up on the shelf, but that the impetus, the real instigation for poetry is everything that's happening around us. >> brown: as she collected the poems, dove began to see relationships, or "conversations," between poets of different generations. for example, this passage from alice dunbar's poem "i sit and sew" laments a woman's limited

role in serving her country during world war i. >> "this little useless seam, the idle patch; why dream i here beneath my homely thatch, when there they lie in sodden mud and rain, pitifully calling me, the quick ones and the slain? you need me, christ! it is no roseate dream that beckons me-- this pretty futile seam, it stifles me-- god, must i sit and sew? whew, i mean, that's just really kind of amazing power. >> brown: dove then heard a kind of echo, 20 years later, in this poem by randell jarrell, who did serve in the army during world war ii. >> "the death of the ball turret gunner." "from my mother's sleep i fell into the state, and i hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze. six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,

i woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters. when i died, they washed me out of the turret with a hose." it's very quiet until that last line, which just kind of knocks you back. and so they both achieve this effect, though in different ways. and they could have been talking to each other in an interesting way. >> brown: in her own poems, dove has long been interested in history, especially in characters who may have been left out of the mainstream narrative. >> claudette colvin was one of the many african-american women who was arrested in montgomery for not obeying the segregation laws. she was not chosen to be the test case; rosa parks was. i'll read you a little bit from the ending. it's called "claudette colvin goes to work."

"so ugly, so fat, so dumb, so greasy. what do we have to do to make god love us? mama was a maid; my daddy mowed lawns like a boy, and i'm the crazy girl off the bus, the one who wrote in class she was going to be president. i am fascinated by those characters who don't make it into the history books. >> brown: why is that, do you think? >> i do think it comes from two sources. one of them is the fact that i was a very shy child, and so i was always sitting quietly on the sidelines watching other people. the other thing comes from, i think, being both a woman and being african american, and seeing ordinary people doing uncommonly brave things without recognition for that kind of bravery or tenacity. >> brown: she wrote very personally about such people in her collection "thomas and beulah," which won the pulitzer

prize and was based on the lives of her grandparents. does all of this inspire you to write, or is this for the day and you write at night? >> i do write at night, but i do see enough of this during the daylight, and it calms me and opens me. >> brown: she now teaches at the university of virginia and lives on a beautiful property in the country. when dove was named the nation's poet laureate in 1993-- the youngest person ever to hold the post-- she became a kind of ambassador for poetry. today, she says opening up the world of literature is part of the mission of her newest project. >> when i was poet laureate, one of the things that struck me the most were people wrote in to me and they would say-- it didn't matter... "i don't know much about poetry." then came the big "but"-- "but i remember getting my first book here," or "this is one of my favorite poems," or "i think poetry should do this."

that's why i feel i want to concentrate on the poems, to make an anthology that tells you what the century was like, but also invites you in. that's really important. >> brown: and does this experience make you want to someday edit the "21st century anthology of american poetry"? >> ( laughs ) i have done my duty! no, i think that i did what i could do. it's really up to someone younger than me to do the 21st century. i'm looking forward to that, actually. ♪ ♪ >> brown: in the meantime, rita dove is back to writing her own poems, and cutting a rug on the dance floor. as she put it in a poem titled "fox trot fridays": >> "one man and one woman, rib to rib, with no heartbreak in sight just the sweep of paradise

and the space of a song to count all the wonders in it." ♪ ♪ >> lehrer: again, the major developments of the day: the securities and exchange commission charged former fannie mae and freddie mac executives with misleading investors and the public about risky loans. congress moved to approve a federal spending bill that keeps the government running for the rest of the year. at the same time, bargaining continued over a payroll tax cut extension. and to hari sreenivasan for what's on the newshour online. hari. >> sreenivasan: on "art beat," rita dove reads some of her poems, and you can watch more of jeff's conversation with her. gwen ifill looks at new polls showing growing voter dissatisfaction with both parties. that's on our "politics" page. and find a preview of our global health team's reporting from

morocco. all that and more is on our web site, newshour.pbs.org. judy. >> woodruff: and that's the newshour for tonight. on monday, we'll look at iraq after the war, and allegations of medicare fraud. i'm judy woodruff. >> lehrer: and i'm jim lehrer. "washington week" can be seen later this evening on most pbs stations. we'll see you online, and again here monday evening. have a nice weekend. thank you and good night. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us.

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